


Talk It Out

by Willowingends



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Complex relationships, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Happy Ending, Nightmares, Post-Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Supportive Tonks, Trauma, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27847570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowingends/pseuds/Willowingends
Summary: The summer after her first year Ginny feels disconnected from the world, alienated. And why shouldn't she? When even the ministry is doubting her sanity to the point they send some one to make sure she doesn't lose her mind and kill someone.
Relationships: Nymphadora Tonks & Ginny Weasley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Talk It Out

She's barely crested twelve when she meets the woman. Woman? Young adult. That's the safest bet, Ginny thinks. Nymphadora Tonks is... unique. That is actually the safest word for them. Unique. More than Ginny, more than Ginny thinks she'll ever be. She stares at the woman -- the person across the kitchen table from her, silent. Her mother introduced Tonks as an auror, but Ginny's not sure why an auror would be assigned here. It almost makes her bitter as she takes in the bubblegum pink hair and the deep grey eyes.

  
  


She's seen those eyes before. She can't place them. Does that mean she hadn't seen them herself?

  
  


Ginny wishes her brothers were home, wishes she hadn't gotten sent home early because of the events of the school year. It would be easier to ignore everything if she was surrounded by people. Even people who whispered, who stared at her when they thought she wasn't looking. It would be better than her mother's smothering or her father's quiet concern. Or this loud, young auror who looks as bored as Ginny feels.

  
  


"Why are you here?" She spits out when the woman has babbled on for thirty minutes about who she is, where she comes from, everything but what Ginny really wants to know.

  
  


She's surprised by the answer.

  
  


Tonks, as she insists on being called, flashes a smile that's all teeth at her. "Because I fucked up kid, and got put on guard duty instead of the really interesting stuff."

  
  


And it's the first time in a while an adult has been honest with Ginny, and even though her mother is snapping at Tonks for their foul language, a small smile tugs at Ginny's lips. She sits quietly while she listens to her mother berate the auror, and then as soon as her mother is in the next room, she's looking back at Tonks with wide eyes. "What did you do?"

  
  


"Spoke rudely to the wrong people, implied a certain government official had no cares for the children of Hogwarts and hadn't for a while, told said official to get buggered. In hindsight, not the best choice to air my concerns in my mentor's office, with the man right there, but y'know? Doesn't make it any less true." Tonks is all smiles as they say this, but their eyes are glinting with a smoldering anger.

  
  


Ginny wonders what house she was in at Hogwarts.

  
  


"Well that's enough of me boring you with my chatter." Tonks stretches, leaning back on two legs of the chair.

  
  


Ginny dreads what she's going to say next and jumps to her feet to circumvent it. "Are you staying with us? It's a bit cramped, but I think Charlie's room is cleaned up enough for you to stay in!" She speaks quickly, her hands folding up in the ends of her shirt. Her brown eyes are wide as she darts her eyes away from the curiosity on the auror's face. She doesn't want to deal with that right now. She doesn't want to answer any other questions. There've been too many people asking her too many things she can't answer, that she doesn't want to answer.

  
  


Moving towards the steps, she gestures for Tonks to follow her. "If you don't want to get roped in to helping mum cook, you should let me show you the room. If you're staying."

  
  


Tonks stood, coming to stand beside Ginny with an easy smile. "Yeah, unfortunately for you my job is a twenty-four hour watch. Everything to do with you I'm sorry to say, but don't take it too personally."

  
  


That didn't make Ginny feel any better, but at least Tonks wasn't lying to her or trying to make her feel better with false platitudes. She nodded, heading up the stairs. "Yeah, well, I expected something like that. I tried to kill people after all."

  
  


Her tone was bitter, and she was careful to keep her back to the auror. She didn't want to see the pity, the accusation, any emotion that the other was directing at her. She was tired, she was so tired of this whole affair.

  
  


She opens the door to Charlie's room, glancing in just a bit to lift her eyebrows. Just as sparse as she remembered. Charlie had always spent more time outside. "Here you go. Make yourself at home. That's what mum would want." She says softly before stepping away and gesturing over her shoulder. "I have to go help with dinner now."

  
  


Ginny made her way back downstairs, her brain running rabid now that she was alone. Guard duty. Why would an auror be put on guard duty here, at the Burrow? There was only one answer, really – her. The auror was here for her.

  
  


Showing Tonks to Charlie's room and then leaving her there was simple enough. As was making her way through dinner, nodding her head at the right times and smiling when certain words were directing at her. It had been a long day though, and she felt as though she was walking through a fog. After helping wash up, she quickly said good night to everyone and excused herself to her bed.

  
  


She doesn't meet her mother and father's worried eyes, or Tonks' curious, dark eyes. She knows that they won't let her get away to the peace of her bedroom if they can see her eyes. The haunted look, the dread she knows is there. She can feel it weigh heavily on her soul.

  
  


Tom had taught her all these. These words, these feelings. 

  
  


Ginny has to take a moment and lean against the wall of the narrow staircase. She's breathing faster, her nails curling into her palms, stinging but not nearly hard enough. She closes her eyes tightly, attempting to breathe slower. Like Tom had taught her. 

  
  


She gags and runs to the bathroom. 

  
  


Bending over the toilet, Ginny retches once more before sitting back and rubbing her eyes. Her hair is damp against her neck, she's covered in sweat. But at least she can breathe. It's just like a shower. Temporary cleanliness before the dark reminders crawl back across her skin. She presses her palms against her eyes harder, fighting back her tears. She's cried enough these past two weeks. She had thought her tears would dry up.

  
  


They hadn't.

  
  


She scrambles to her feet at the sound of a knocking on the door. "Just a moment." She chokes out. She swallows, scrubs her cheeks and turns on the sink. Anything to make it look like she hadn’t just been crying. Flushing the toilet she leaves the water running for another second before turning it back off and opening the door. Tonks stands in the small hallway, their shoulders slouched and a grimace pulling down the corners of their lips now. But they give Ginny a lopsided grin, their now blue eyes bright as they look at her. 

  
  


“Aw come on. I’m not so bad of a guest that you should be getting sick of me already.” The joke falls flat as Ginny just stares at them before moving to the side to let them in. The light of their smile contrasts with the concern that Ginny sees flash across their face and it makes Ginny feel sick all over again. But she doesn’t dare close the door in the other’s face. This is an auror after all, even if one in disgrace. So instead she steps passed Tonks and makes her way upstairs to her bedroom.

  
  


It’s another bad night.

Ginny knew from the moment that her head hit the pillow that the night before her would be long and dreadful. It's almost become a sixth sense. The feeling of the darkness closing in on her, the heaviness of her eyelids that refuse to close out of fear of where she will be when they open back up, it all adds up to one thing. Restlessness. But it’s better than the nightmares.

Anything is better than the dreams. Dreams of his face, of his smooth and soft words, they haunt her. But not as much as the aching feeling of not being alone anymore. The relief from the loneliness is enough to bring tears to her eyes in her sleep, making her feel gross when she awakens. No, she much prefers the night that ends with the dawn, because those mornings she doesn’t feel as though she has to scrub herself raw. The concerned look of her mother in the morning is manageable, and her father’s worry at night is something she bears.

The new factor of Tonks doesn’t cross her mind until she’s putting herself through the motions of breakfast the next morning. The other is righting a chair she knocked over, her plate of eggs and beans safely deposited on the table, and they freeze mid apologetic laugh when she sees Ginny. “No offense, but you look like a flobberworm this morning Gin. Maybe a bit worse.” 

The bluntness of the statement has Ginny blinking at them in confusion, but there’s something more than just confusion coming into form within her mind. There’s… Relief. It’s relieving to have someone who isn’t attempting to tiptoe around her. Who isn’t trying to pretend that she’s here, home, alone with her parents, because she had earned herself a holiday. That she was here because something was wrong with her. And it felt good to have any aspect of that acknowledged.

“Yeah, I didn’t sleep.”

The words roll off her tongue easily and it’s like weights she didn’t know were lifted from her shoulders. Tonks’ eyes swirl and twist with grey and deep blue before settling on a calm sky blue. The color of the open sky, of a broom in hand and a breath of fresh air. “Ya wanna talk about it?” It’s an open offer, one that Ginny feels has no expiration date. But not yet. Not now. She’s not ready. So she shakes her head, and Tonks doesn’t purse their lips. They only nod, pulling out a chair from the table. “C’mon and sit. Your mum just finished breakfast and it smells like Avalon’s fields I swear.” 

* * *

And that’s how life passes for a week. Tense and yet easier than Ginny’s experienced since she’s returned from Hogwarts. Her parents still dance around the subject, speak of her illness, but don’t talk about what happened. But Tonks doesn’t do that. Tonks seems to treat this as they do many other things in their life. Head-on and clumsily. Stumbling over words, saying things that cause red apples to flush across Ginny’s freckled cheeks and anger burn in her chest as they speak about things they have no understanding of. But at least Tonks speaks about it. 

But perhaps speaking about it has made it worse, because that seems to have brought everything roaring to the forefront of her mind. It’s no longer whispers of what Tom might have said, might have thought, but deafening reminders of how he had guided her. Taught her how to navigate social situations, taught her how to move her wand and channel her natural talent, taught her how to be Ginny and not the youngest Weasley. It brings to mind his deep green eyes and his sharp cheekbones. It brings to mind the kindness he had shown her in the beginning, and the kindness he had offered in his forgiveness when she had got the diary back.

And it brings to mind his final goodbye as she had been consumed by shadows and chill in that large cavern with the sound of slithering scales echoing around her.

It’s that moment of memory, of nightmare, of slipping away that has her jerking up out of bed more often than not. Has her sweaty hands grasping sheets that smother her, that wrap her up in warmth but hold her too tight, that’s when she flees. Desperately choking on screams she swallowed in her sleep, she runs. Feather-light footsteps racing down too steep stairs and careening out into the open air. It shocks her awake, the night breeze on the tears tracking down her pale cheeks. It allows her to breathe.

Ginny finds freedom in the stars and how she draws nearer to them as she steals Fred’s broom and soars into the sky. Never far, never out of sight of the house, even when no one else is awake she knows better than to fly where no one will have a chance of finding her. She doesn’t want to be left that alone ever again. She clings to her broom, to the feeling of freedom, and erases every memory of him for a little bit.

When she lands on top of the hill closest to the Burrow, there’s a figure waiting for her. 

Tonks is sitting on a picnic blanket, their head tilted up towards the stars as Ginny lands. There’s a part of Ginny that hunches up. Ready to defend herself, to beg that the auror won’t tell her parents, she’s ready for anything. But there’s a part of her, a small part but growing every day, that thinks that maybe Tonks understands her better than she knows. And it’s only encouraged to grow in her as Tonks pats the space beside them on the blanket. Placing the broom down first, Ginny curled up on the fabric, enjoying the slight warming charm that radiated from it. She stared at Tonks, waiting for them to push. To demand to know why she was out so late. Something.

But they didn’t. Instead they shook their head, “You’re eleven right kid? And you can fly like that? Bloody hell.” They chuckled. “I can barely get off the ground without the broom starting to get jerky. It’s like it can tell that I’m probably gonna fall off with or without it’s help, so it might as well get it over with.”

“Brooms don’t have brains.”

“Neither do books.”

Ginny’s lips pulled into a scowl, her arms wrapping defensively around her knees as she stared out across the swaying grass. “It wasn’t just a book.” Tonks makes no noise at all in response to that and it’s almost aggravating. “It wasn’t! It wasn’t a cursed book, or -- or whatever they told you and mom and dad. It-- Someone’s soul was inside it I’m telling you! And Tom-” She stumbled across the name, a heavy sob breaking past her chapped lips as she buried her face in her knees. “Tom was my friend.” 

She burst into heavy sobs at that statement, unable to stop herself. Her shoulders shook violently and she felt like she was coming apart at the seams. Tom had been her first real friend, the first person she had told everything to. She hadn’t even realized how much she had told him until he was using it to hold sway over her. She hadn’t realized how much she depended on him until he was gone. And wasn’t that so messed up? That she missed him when he had hurt her so bad?”

“Hey, hey, no. No, don't think like that.” Tonks’ voice was soft, causing Ginny to realize that she had been gasping the words out between her heavy breaths. She twisted away from Tonks, horrified by how she had bared herself to the other without meaning too. Their hand stopped though, hovering in the air above her shoulder. “You can’t think like that Ginny. You’re not messed up. Or daft. Or anything like that. Merlin’s pants, you’re stronger than half the aurors I know because you not only lived through that, but you still came out a good person. You still came out a person at all. It’s only natural that you’d feel upset over him betraying you like that.”

“But I miss him just as much as I hate him.” Ginny argued. She glared at Tonks, her head having snapped up to watch what she was certain to pass across the auror’s face. Horror, pity, a hint of disgust -- what else could someone think when told that a victim longed for the company of the one who had hurt them. 

  
  


Tonks’ face didn’t show… any of that though. It wasn’t even a carefully kept neutral mask. It was just… kind. They held out a handkerchief, letting Ginny snatch it and scrub at the tears that still rolled down her face. They were silent as Ginny attempted to recompose herself, but the tears just wouldn’t stop. “It’s alright to cry. It’s alright to miss him. Even though he hurt you.” Tonks said softly. “My mom’s family… was royally terrible. Especially to my mom after she left the family house but… She still misses them. Even though they hurt her, disowned her, she still misses them.”

  
  


“That’s not the same.”

  
  


“Isn’t it?” Tonks’ eyebrows swept upwards, causing a giggle to break unexpectedly from Ginny as they stretched up and twirled at the edges as though to further show Tonks’ disbelief. “They were everything to her. They supported her, talked her up. They told her that they believed she could do great things. And then they betrayed her, just because she did something they didn’t like.” Tonks sighed, laying back on the blanket now and staring up at the stars. “I’m not that great at this. But… I don’t think you should keep beating yourself up for feeling conflicted about him. And I don’t think you should avoid talking about him. He was literally the biggest influence on your life for a year. Just ignoring it, pretending it didn’t happen, it’s sure to mess you up.”

  
  


“Yeah, like mom and dad are gonna wanna talk about Tom.”

  
  


“I’ll listen.” Tonks offered without hesitation. “Hell, I’ll talk to them about it for you. I’m no trained mind healer or some bloody nonsense like that, but I’m good at listening. And distracting when things get too much. And I can't fly all that great, but I can ‘supervise’ you so you get a chance to get away from everything for a bit.”

  
  


“Seriously?” Ginny’s voice cracked slightly. No one had wanted to hear about Tom. Everyone had been telling her to focus on recovering, to forget what had happened and look to the summer, the next school year, to not look back. Tonks nodded once and Ginny’s voice cracked, “I… I really miss him.”

  
  


And it was like the floodwall had broken as words began pouring out of her. But these weren’t coated in rage, hate, and fear. There was loss and cluelessness, the words of an eleven year old girl who had lost her best friend. And with each sentence, Ginny felt like the world was just a little bit less judgmental. 


End file.
